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Because these spread quite a bit while cooking, I only dared to bake 6 on a cookie sheet at a time. strangely enough for every six that came out of the oven, only two made it into the cookie jar. Some chocolate loving little hands swiped them (mine included)! We ate these yummy chocolatey hazelnut pieces of heaven while watching all those toned bodies work for Olympic gold. Do I feel guilty?! Not one bit! Wait…Nutella’s good for you right?!

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Here’s my second attempt. This time I tried to use more “spots” and made them much smaller…about half the size actually. I was happier with the resuls this time. Either way, we got to munch on a second birthday cake! There’s always room for cake! A Happy Birthday indeed!

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I love to bake. But now that I’m back at work (*tear*) I don’t have a ton of free time. So the last time I made cake pops I reserved some that had been balled up and placed on sticks and put them in a zip lock bag in the freezer.

Well yesterday we finally finished this cake. With no time to bake tonight (and we all know dinner isn’t complete without dessert) I pulled a pop for each of us out of the freezer, microwaved some chocolate almond bark and coated the cold (but no longer frozen) pops. Do you know what this means?! You can make a batch on the weekend and have pops for weeks….That is if you can hold off!

Now you know what you’re doing this weekend!

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Today my little baby sister turns 19! Ahhh…remember those days?! For her birthday I tried to take one of her favs and put it inside the cake. Can you tell that its leopard print? Well its supposed to be. It didn’t turn out exactly like I envisioned it. But lucky for me I have another shot at it! I’m going to do the whole thing all over again this weekend.

I made the “spots” using the cake pop method. I simply added a small amount of chocolate frosting to cake that had been dyed and baked. I formed odd-shaped balls of the brown and then wrapped them with the black cake. I dropped “spots” in the bottom of the plan and poured some of the batter on top and added some more spots that were sticking up out of the batter a little. As the cake baked it rose up over them. You’ll need a lot of spots. I thought I used a lot on my first attempt, but I can see that I will need many more and probably smaller and less uniform…

Wish me luck on take two…

For her name, I simply wrote it out with melting candy and then generously sprinkled it with gold sugar sprinkles. Place it in the fridge to set and pouf…super cute cake topper!

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I had the pleasure of assisting our dear Summer with setting up for her daughters’ birthday party. With a vintage circus/carnival theme, naturally there were many polk a dots incorporated. For some crazy reason, party supplies in her area were limited so we got creative.

We used the classic rice krispie recipe but swapped out Rice Krispies cereal for Trix. They are colorful and fun and a little extra sweet. My favorite part? When you cut into them, they creat a really pretty pol a dot pattern from the side.

To package each to be placed in favor bags, I wrapped each with a small piece of plastic wrap (so it won’t stick to anything). For decoration and to further our theme, I took a couple of extra favor bags and cut them into strips just long enough to fit around the Trix Treat. Then I wrapped a piece of Japanese washi tape in a coordinating color around the center of that. They were placed in a basket near the favor bags and each of the small guests got to pick one to add to their favor bag before leaving. There were a few extra for us big kids too…

Looking for a gift idea for that special summertime birthday coming up? I recently gave two of my favorite little girls a gift that keeps on giving. I created a lemonade stand gift basket that included a jug with spigot, a juicer, a pad of paper for taking orders and keeping track of sales, a yellow tablecloth, plastic cups, straws, ice bucket, lemons and a jar of sugar (although they’re sweet enough already!).

The kids squeezed the lemons, mixed up the fresh lemonade, made their own signage and set up shop outside. I made some lemon shortcut cookies to help lure in customers too.

I happen to ADORE fresh lemonade (and a good cookie) so I was the first customer in line. But once the word got out on the street everyone from the neighborhood kids to the mail lady stopped by for a fresh treat on a warm summer day. We all had a great time and the kids got to practice counting money and learned a little business lesson too (like why it didn’t make good business sense to charge $5 a cup).

I told the kids to remember where they got their start when one day they’re powerful CEOs of their own companies…Cheers to summertime fun!

How French is your toast? Is French Toast French?! Probably not. But French Toast is definitely my favorite breakfast dish. And since my kitchen tends to be heavy on the citrus these days, I threw a little in my breakfast as well.

1 loaf Sourdough Bread

2 whole Egg Yolks

1/4 cup Heavy Cream

3/4 cup Milk

1/2 Tablespoon Sugar

1 teaspoons Vanilla

Zest Of Half an Orange (or zest the whole thing for even more flavor)

In a shallow dish mix the egg yolks, heavy cream, milk, sugar, vanilla and orange zest. Slice your bread and coat each side in the egg mixture. Cook on a hot griddle until its nice and golden. Serve with syrup and powdered sugar.